Family Doctors
by IDIOTAtheIDIOT
Summary: AU. The Doctors are one big family, struggling with their genius minds in social and domestic settings. The neighbors are annoyed. Their colleagues are intrigued. And there will be a wedding. Run for your lives. Featuring the 9th Doctor as Dad, Tenth and Tentoo as twin siblings, the 11th Doctor as the youngest with the TARDIS as Mum.
1. Good Morning

**Chapter 1 - Good Morning**

Idris Tardis Who was a very patient woman.

She insisted on being called with her maiden name, Tardis, because she could and she preferred it to her given name. She was also the wife and the mother of the geniuses today, whom, despite being top in each their areas of expertise, still made it a point to act like children on a daily basis. It was entertaining, she once thought, to see all of them to be so very childish while also being equipped with intelligence with knowledge that would have destroyed the brains of many people within their generation and beyond.

Not to mention the only similar part of their odd personalities came from the fact that they were possibly the biggest egomaniacs of the century.

It wasn't easy to take care of five year olds whose actual ages were beyond the level of nursery education. If she had lacked any amount of patience that she held today, she might have walked out on this family a long time ago for a very sweet vacation that was very much needed.

Instead, she woke up at six o'clock in the morning every day to take a hot shower. Then she dressed herself, wrapped her long curly hair in a towel around her head, and set out for the kitchen in their small apartment where she set out plates and other kitchenware before inserting bread into the toaster, and the eggs into the frying pan.

She would have placed the bacon onto separate plates by the time three mobile phones rang their separate morning alarms in the bedrooms.

Of course, that didn't necessarily mean that all three of them would step out for breakfast at the same time as well.

The door to the bedroom that she shared with her husband would open and reveal a very groggy Christopher Eccleston Who, the current Head of the Astronomy Department in the university he worked in. He would smile and kiss her on the nose before shuffling back into their room to the attached bathroom where he washed himself in cold water. When he came out, he would be fully awake with a serious, but a charming grin on his features, ready for another day.

"Are the boys not awake yet?" he asked his wife as she opened a new bottle of orange juice.

As soon as Chris's question left his mouth, David and Matt's bedroom door opened with a click and out stepped David Tennant Who, ready with a change of clothes and walked straight across the hallway to the washroom without bumping into anything. An incredible feat, if you consider that his eyes were closed during the entire journey.

"Well, there goes David, dear."

"So I assume that Matt is still in bed?"

"Yes. I need to get him up so he won't be late for work again."

"Thank you. Oh, and when you do, do make sure to see what he's been up to last night, won't you, Idris? I could hear things falling to the floor from around two to three in the morning."

Tardis smiled. "Of course, my dear."

The eldest Dr. Who smiled back before reaching out tousling her hair automatically, only to find a slightly damp towel around it. The towel fell to the floor, and without it, so did Tardis's wet hair.

She smiled in acceptance when Chris muttered an apology before replacing the towel and moving on to the bedroom that the boys shared.

It was always a half-a-mess in the boys' room. It wasn't until after David's twin brother moved out to live with his girlfriend that the family moved into the apartment where the two boys had to share a room, and the personality of the other two brothers didn't exactly make living together easy. The apartment itself wasn't so small but after they created offices for each of the doctors in the family – three, excluding the aforementioned twin brother – the lack of bedrooms were apparent. And Chris insisted that the "grown-ups" would at least have a room for themselves, which left the boys on their own to figure out how to share their own.

They figured it out eventually. The entire room was divided into half where David and Matt had stuck long strips of paper tape on the floor to mark their own separate areas of privacy. Matt's part of the bedroom was a literal landmine; nobody could walk around in that part of the room without stumbling over stacks of albums, bits of this and that, clothes that included fezzes and bowties and everything else. The David half of the room could not have contrasted more. It was spotless, absolutely clean. Papers were organized into folders, the bits of this and that were all separated and put away in small boxes and containers, clothes were folded neatly into drawers or were hung in closets. The room was divided between black and white with no gray in between.

The top most part of Matt's side of the room was currently occupied with a fez, probably picked up from a cultural fair on U.N day last year, laid on its side with undone bowties draped across. A bowl that once held custard lay at the head of the bed, and even without looking into it Tardis could already predict that the possibility of bits and crumbs of fish fingers being stuck to the sides of the bowl were very high. And the most present junk of the room were parts of a radio that were clearly picked up from the junkyard. Why Matt might have picked that up, Tardis had no idea.

"So that was what you were doing, weren't you, you little thief?" said Tardis fondly as she knelt down and rolled a screw from the disassembled radio between the fingers.

The bed currently held a very sleepy Matthew Smith Who, still in his daily clothes, braces hanging awkwardly from his shoulders. His right arm dangled off the bed, his beloved "sonic" screwdriver hanging limply in his hand. Apparently, he had fallen asleep while working on his radio. When Tardis walked over to the curtains and opened them wide to reveal the dazzling brightness of the sunshine, her youngest child groaned and stuffed his head within his pillows to avoid the sun.

"Come on now, my dear thief. It's time to rise and shine," she said, over the pillows, waiting until the air between them would get stuffy and eventually lead to Matt sticking his face out.

"'M tired," came the reply.

"Well, if you hadn't stayed up till three in the morning to take apart that sad excuse for a radio signal receiver, you might have gotten some more sleep. Speaking of which, you have an office in this flat where you could do that instead of taking everything apart in your room beside your bed."

"Wanted to put it back together," mumbled Matt. "Wanted to make it send signals as well."

"That's still available to do in your office, dear. You could always have done that some other time as well. Right now, you need to get to your work, or you'll be late again," said Tardis as patiently as she could while stroking her youngest son's floppy hair. Matt stayed still for a moment longer before pushing himself up and off the bed while groaning as the blinding summer morning sun hit his eyes.

"That's the spirit," smiled Tardis as she led the clumsy man to the kitchen table.

"Good morning, Matt," greeted Chris from behind his sunny-side-up eggs and bread.

Matt merely nodded sleepily, blinking stupidly at his father, before reaching for something then pulling his hand back.

"What's the matter, dear?" asked Tardis, although she knew perfectly what the problem was.

"There are no fish fingers, and I need fish fingers and custard."

"That's because you're not supposed to have fish fingers for breakfast," said David as he appeared at the table, shaking off the excess water from his naturally spiky hair, dressed in a shirt and a pair of pants from his brown pinstriped suit. His favorite patterned tie hung from around his neck, still waiting to be worn properly, and he was still barefooted from the shower.

"But I still need some to kick start my day," retorted Matt.

"But it's not healthy for you to have fish fingers in the morning, you have to eat a meal that actually has good nutrients in it, any old doctor would tell you – "

"Excuse me, but I believe that if you want a meal with good nutrients with it, you could always live off potatoes and milk. Mashed potatoes. Bloody mashed potatoes, which consists of solely of _Solanum tuberosum_ and either milk or butter, which can provide for vitamin A and D which the potatoes cannot," snapped Matt, glaring at the elder Who brother with no traces of sleepiness that inhabited him until now. "Any old doctor would tell you _that_."

David cocked his head slightly and pushed out his lips to give what looked like a little pout before giving the young engineer his signature grin. "Alright, don't get angry, little brother, but really, you should consider getting eyebrows for that glaring thing before you start doing it right."

Tardis sighed. If there was one thing that her youngest son lacked apart from his ability to keep his things straight and tidy, were his eyebrows. Of course David would go straight for them. Of course.

She glanced at her husband, who sipped his tea and was apparently very focused on his bacon that he kept trying to roll before putting his fork through. His large ears, however, were strained to listen to his sons as they argued on and forth. She nudged him with her elbow to tell him to stop the boys from a possible fight, but Chris just shook his head and went back to his plate.

But his ears still twitched.

And the boys kept arguing.

"_My eyebrows_? All right, _big brother_, why don't you tell us about the time where you nearly cut your bloody hand cut off from so we can be reminded of how dumb you are?"

"It wasn't my fault that the guy was more aggressive than I thought, and I didn't know that he had a knife in his hand. And really, are you sure that _I'm_ the one who's dumb?"

"If you're asking me that question, yes, I believe so."

"If that's really all you can come up with – "

"Because if I do, you wouldn't be able to handle my hell of a genius mind."

David gasped in mock surprise. "Excuse me? Did you just say_ your _genius mind? You're just an overgrown giraffe face with a less than average human intellect."

"_A giraffe_? Me? Do you know that you look like an owl, has anyone mentioned that before?"

"Boys!" The two of them looked up at the sound of their father finally interfering. "I don't want to hear you two trying to find out who has less intelligence than the other during breakfast. So for Rassilon's good sake, both of you will sit down and have a decent breakfast without any snide remarks in the conversation. And," continued Chris as Matt opened his mouth. "No fish custard for breakfast. You know the rules. They specifically state, 'No fish custard for breakfast'."

The two sat down at the table. Matt grumbled something about rules being meant to be broken under his breath while looking defeated in his chair, but still managed to shoot looks full of resentfulness towards his brother. David smiled, not too secretly from behind his already half-eaten toast, his face threatening to crack from ear to ear.

Tardis sighed affectionately and pushed the plate with eggs and bacon towards Matt before pouring David a cup of hot water with his favorite flavored teabag. She smiled at both of them, for David to try his tea and to encourage Matt to start his breakfast.

"Anyways," Chris declared, smiling as he popped the last piece of his bread dipped in the egg yolk into his mouth. "I think we can all agree that I am the most fantastic and the most intelligent one in this family. Don't you think?"

Tardis sighed again, this time in exasperation as both her sons raised their heads from their breakfasts to give their father incredulous looks. Oh, the egos in this family.


	2. Office Reunions

**Thank you so much for everyone who reviewed! I'm actually surprised that I've got David's personality, because I've never actually watched a lot of David Tennant's episodes, so I was actually quite surprised at the positive response.**

**I've hopefully done the same in this chapter, although I can't be too sure. Hopefully, nobody will hate John or Rose by the end of the chapter as well.**

**Let's move on.**

* * *

**Chapter 2 – Office Reunions**

It was on very rare occasions that the receptionist at Dr. Who's hospital told him that he had a family visitor in his office when he came back from his lunch break.

It was on even rarer occasions that Dr. Who's younger twin brother was the family visitor.

Nevertheless, he got over his shock of seeing his nearly mirror image in a blue pinstripe suit who currently sat in his chair, munching away on an apple that most likely came from the fridge – _his _fridge - in the office room.

He now realized what the secretive wink from the receptionist meant.

"Hello, David," said his mirror image.

"Hello, John Smith," David replied, motioning to his younger image to get the bloody hell out of his seat. John-Smith struggled for a while, on the two choices between staying comfortable or getting out of the chair and sitting on the stool on the other side of the desk instead.

A glare from David settled the matters. John begrudgingly stood up and moved around the desk.

"I told you not to call me that," said John as David snatched the apple from his hand and took a bite. "And that was my apple."

"John Smith is a wonderful name. I sometimes wonder why Mum didn't name you that in the first place. John Smith Who, it sounds much better than John Tennant Who."

"I don't like it, it sounds plain and everybody's called 'John Smith'."

"Plain, just like you?"

"That's rude. And I want my apple back."

"But isn't that me, rude and not ginger? And technically, it's mine, it came from my fridge and I bought it with my own money, which you, just took out and started to eat without my permission," stated David as he gleefully took another bite.

"You already had your lunch," said John, but the rest of his argument died off as David raised his eyebrows in a 'so what?' fashion.

"So," started David in his rightfully claimed seat as he grinned at his disgruntled twin. "What brings you here?"

"I wanted to visit," said John, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Can't I visit my beloved brother on occasions?"

"You came over to visit last month in our tiny little family flat."

"Once a month is hardly enough, David."

David pretended to consider what John said. "Nah, you're here for a reason. Now spit it out, John."

"May I ask why you even go out during lunch breaks when you have a nice fridge in your office?"

"I generally prefer hot meals. But you're stalling, why are you sta–"

"Oh, how are Mum and Dad? And little Matt? I forgot to call you all last week."

"Mum and Dad are fine, nothing's really changed considering their physical conditions, apart from the fact they're a month older than you last saw them, and well – you know Matt, apparently he wanted to make his own personal radio to send out signals instead of just receiving them. Stayed awake during the bloody night, it's incredible how his brain even functions. But really, why don't you just tell me what you're up to?"

"What about Mr. Saxon, how is –"

"Stop that," interrupted David, frowning at John. "You're trying to get me off track on purpose. What is it that's so important that you don't want to tell me?"

"Well, um, I'm a bit worried 'bout something."

"What is it?"

"I'm not exactly how to break it to you – I mean, I know how you must feel about this subject and all, but…"

"Oh, for the sake of Dad's beloved Gallifrey, just spit it out!"

"I, um, hmm…" John looked extremely uncomfortable as he squirmed slightly on his stool. David put himself away from the safety of the back of his chair and set both of his elbows onto the desk. His twin brother looked very, very unsure of himself at the current moment.

What was this thing that intimidated his twin brother so?

As that question arose in David's head, he himself became slightly worried as well. Whatever that his brother was worried about would probably get himself worried too. The twin brothers were close, very close, even though John had moved out to live with Rose Tyler in London. Not only were their appearances identical, the very thought process were so similar that they were inseparable in their early days.

Whatever one disliked, the other disliked as well. Whatever the other liked, the other liked as well. Whatever one was scared about something, the other became scared as well.

This time was unlikely to an exception.

So David tried to mentally prepare himself as John finally seemed to decide on what and how to say it. He leaned slightly forward on his elbows and shifted his weight to rest on his elbows, anticipating what would come next.

Surely the family's John Smith was overreacting. Surely it wasn't that bad. He picked up the half eaten apple again and took another bite.

"I'm going to propose to Rose," said John.

Oh.

David choked on the offending fruit as it attempted to slide down his respiratory passage. Was this what Snow White felt like, choking on her infamous apple? No, wait, she died because it was poisonous, not because she choked on it. Why was he even thinking about Snow White and her stupid apple in the first place? He shook his head, trying to rid himself of various emotions that were threatening to break out from the inside of his heart at the moment. Across the desk, John watched him closely, his expression being something like that of a puppy that was denied of its fetching game.

"David," he started, but the elder Who cut him off.

"No, it's alright," stated David, more to himself than to his brother. "I've moved on. I loved her, but it's okay, I've moved on. She's just a friend now."

He stood up and paced around his chair, from the bookshelf to the window.

"I've moved on," he repeated, mostly to himself now. "I've moved on."

John kept on watching. His brother probably knew that he was going to act like this, too. That was why he kept putting it off. He probably knew that the news was going to upset him.

How right he was.

The difference in the Who twins were easily made apparent by their personalities, especially how they reacted to when they were upset. John was like ice in an alcoholic beverage, the only signal of the situation being the ice clinking against the glass. When the ice clinked, bits of his anger would show through, but it was short and biting, like the sound of the glass. His anger burned slowly but quietly, until the fuel was all gone and there was nothing else to keep the grudge going. Or to melt, in the case of the metaphorical ice.

David was different. His anger flared and burned quickly. When David was upset, he was upset and that point was made clear to anyone who would be unfortunate enough to come across him. The accident ten years ago was a clear nod to that when David pushed his younger brother off the stairs in the heat of an argument.

Matt's back was never the same after that.

So John stayed still, hoping that David's personality hadn't changed. It was a strange thing to hope for, considering how dangerous David was when he let his feelings erupt violently, but it also meant that the fire would burn out quicker than John's long term grudge. Hopefully, hopefully that would still be the case.

The telephone rang loud and sharp amongst the tension in the room. The two jumped at the sound, clearly startled by the ringing. John glanced at David, who looked back. The younger twin nodded at the phone, motioning the elder to pick it up.

Which he didn't really need to do so, because David had already picked up the receiver.

"Hello, Dr. Who on the line."

"_Sir, there's a patient on the phone who would like to make a quick appointment. She says that she would like to schedule it within the next twenty minutes." _

"Twenty minutes?"

"_Is there a problem, doctor?" _

"Oh, yes, no, wait, no, not at all. Tell her that I'll be waiting for her."

"_I'll inform her back."_ The receptionist almost sounded amused. _"Thank you, sir."_

The call ended. David lowered the phone back onto its place.

"So," said John, drawing out the 'o' as David finally sat back down. "You're kicking me out, then?"

His eyes snapped to John's.

"No, of course not. There's just a patient that's waiting."

"I heard the conversation, I was sitting right in front of you and the receptionist isn't exactly the quietest woman in this bloody building."

David stared at John. John stared back. "Are you saying that I'm kicking you out by using my patient as an excuse?"

"Well, yes, maybe."

"I'm sorry, but I believe there's a human being out there, waiting for my help, and in case you've forgotten, it's my job to help other people."

"Aren't you just upset because I'm proposing to Rose?"

"Why?"

"Because you still love her no matter what you claim."

"I've moved on!"

"Clearly not. You don't think I can't put two and two together when you've just been walking around this room, muttering about moving on although your actions in response to my statement clearly contradict your claims."

"What are you implying?"

"That you're jealous of me because I love Rose and Rose _loves me back_."

A sudden silence fell in the office.

"Get out."

"No, wait, I'm sorry –"

"Out."

"That wasn't what I meant to say, really David, I'm sorry, that wasn't very thoughtful of me and I'm truly so –"

"_OUT!" _

Before John realized what was happening, he was grabbed by the front of his blue suit, pushed out of the office and into the corridor. He turned around to apologize to David, perhaps he might forgive him if he sounded as sincere as he felt, but the door had already slammed closed the moment he was thrown out of the room.

John stared at the door sadly. He hadn't meant to say that. He knew that Rose was a touchy subject for David, how the three of them had gotten along well as friends during their time at high school, but the moment that Rose saw both twins together she seemed to have preferred John.

Not that David was bad or anything. No, he remembered the exact words that Rose had told David when he asked her out. That David was nice and kind, funny and adorable, amazing and fantastic, but she preferred John, who was less aggressive and was less likely to get into trouble with his temper. He scared her, said Rose, when he got into a fight with the neighbor next door twice his size about the violin practices that the guy next door had in the middle of the night. He scared her when he pushed his youngest brother from the stairs in the middle of an argument.

He remembered saying Rose that she was brave for telling David that he scared her. He remembered the gentle kiss that Rose had pressed onto his lips as he said good bye.

He also remembered David's reaction after Rose had gone home. He had sat on the sofa of their bedroom – the twins had shared a room in the old house – and watched the dust settle with an emotionless face.

"John," he remembered David saying. "Am I really that… horrible when I get angry?"

John remembered smiling, hoping that it would reassure his elder sibling. He remembered clapping his hand on David's shoulder, replying that it was okay to get angry.

That wasn't the answer that David had wanted to hear.

So John told him.

"You become very aggressive," he had told David. "You remember the nickname that you've gotten in our school, yeah? The Oncoming Storm? You're dangerous when you're angry, David. You see red. And you often don't realize that you're hurting others."

David's face was scrunched up, trying to keep tears from falling. Failing miserably.

"You have to be more careful," said John. "You need to keep your head clear and cool. That's what you need."

"How?" asked David as he sobbed into his hands. "How do I do that?"

David looked so broken, so hurt that John suddenly found himself at a loss of word. Even learning that Rose wanted him couldn't lift his spirits up from seeing David's tears that day. And that was the moment that John swore to David that he would help him forever. That he would help him to become a better person that David wanted to become.

Now, as John walked away, straightening his blue suit to look as if nothing had happened, nodding to the receptionist as he walked out of the building, he wondered if he was the one that had made David even more aggressive than he was. He felt as if he had failed David.

Because it was on that day that he chose what he wanted to become. Because it was on that day that John looked up what it was to help others in a psychological way.

Because it was on that day on that year, that John decided to become a psychologist. All for David's sake.

But he had failed him instead.


	3. Watery Relationships

**Chapter 3 - Watery Relationships**

He had been sitting at laboratory table, head close to his current project with a tiny welder in his hand. His screwdriver had busted, leaving him helpless with the other things that he had been working on. No matter how big the other things were, when it came to situation like this, his screwdriver was always first on the line.

Of course, it wasn't really his. Well, it was his in the manner that he owned it, but the design and all the complicated little factors that made it his sonic screwdriver wasn't his idea to begin with at all.

The inner workings of the sonic screwdriver had originally been designed and put to use by William Hartnell Who, who passed the blueprints onto his younger brother, Matt's great-great-great-great grandfather, Jon Pertwee Who. From then on, the blueprints had been passed on, each of the Whos who owned a sonic screwdriver contributing a little by little. By time that it reached his dad, it had become a silver and gold thing with a blue light at the end. David and John's version was silver and blue with only several other changes, but entirely the same to their dad's. But Matt wanted something entirely different.

He wanted a screwdriver that was cool.

So he stole the blueprints from his dad's study. Well, he hadn't really stolen it. His mother found him pouting out of jealousy on the day that the twin brothers received their twentieth birthday present. She promised him that she would help him get his own screwdriver, so she took the blueprints from Christopher's files and gave it to Matt.

When Chris discovered that his blueprints were missing two days later, Tardis could barely calm him down. She had to keep telling him that it would turn up when it would. Chris buried himself in his work in retaliation. That was the greatest secret accomplishment of the family, he had said. And it just went missing. The father blamed himself, thinking that it may be gone forever, never to be recovered.

Three days after it was declared missing, it returned back into its folder on its shelf. Christopher very nearly cried tears of joy.

And the youngest Who had a new screwdriver.

His mind drifted to other matters as he poked the flicking mechanism that would open the claws. Lunch was a very tempting idea at the moment. Maybe he could get the fish custard that he didn't get for breakfast. And maybe sit down with some of his friends and talk a bit.

Perhaps, with _her_.

Her soft, golden curls that reached her shoulders, her smooth voice laced with intelligence that he had never seen matched by anyone else; her wit, her strength; her strength that kept her going, despite her harsh life as an archeologist.

The door of the lab opened, but Matt hardly registered the sound as he tried not to disturb a very small circuit in his sonic as he wired it back

A pair of strong but gentle arms wrapped themselves around his waist. For a tiniest fraction of a second, he tensed, but a sweet and very familiar smell filled his nose instead. He tried to turn around to see who it was, but his physical capacities were limited and he opted to just facing the front as he placed his hands on the ones on his stomach.

"Hello, sweetie," said the source of the said sweet, rich smell, her words like honey rolling over her tongue.

"River," he breathed, his baby face breaking into a smile. Relaxation washed over him and he relaxed slightly in her arms before straightening up and releasing the welder before letting it drop onto the table.

River gently turned him around and pulled him down and laid a small kiss on his lips before releasing him to look over his shoulders at his current project. "What were you doing, Matt?"

"Trying to fix my screwdriver," replied Matt as he turned back towards the table himself. He picked the welder back up and tried to figure where he left off before he was distracted by his very irresistible archeologist.

"It doesn't look like you're making a lot of progress, sweetie."

"Yes, that tends to happen when you're around," muttered Matt, hoping he'd sound a bit cross with River, but River just smiled her usual _gorgeous_ smile, and knew that his bluff hadn't worked.

"Oh, it's not my fault that you get distracted so easily," said River, winking at him. Matt felt his face become slightly warmer.

"Professor Song," said Matt.

"Dr. Who," said the archeologist, just as flirty as before.

"You might as well as be the death of me," he said, before laying a small kiss on her nose. River broke out into a smile, a big, beautiful smile that illuminated her entire face –

Matt found himself stammering about working on his screwdriver as he turned away from his lover to hide a full blush.

Of course, that only made River to break out into a laugh at his misfortune.

"Stop laughing," he said.

"Oh, Matt. You don't know how cute you can be at times, even when you're trying to be the exact opposite."

"Cute?"

"The angry doesn't suit you and your big, watery eyes, my love."

"_Cute_?"

"This is exactly what I meant. You don't exactly look frightening when you're angry."

"That's only because you haven't seen me when I'm angry."

"Haven't I?"

River had never seen him when he was in despair. She had never seen him when he thought that there was nowhere else to go for him. They had met at the last year at university. They kept in touch while River went to study archeology to earn her degree. But she had never known him when he was truly at pit bottom.

But River didn't know that. So Matt just gave her the brightest smile that he could muster on his face without saying anything else.

River laughed again, oblivious to the turmoil within his head. "Let's go, Dr. Who," she chuckled, tugging on Matt's tweed jacket sleeve.

"Go to where?"

"To the cafeteria, of course. I have someone who wanted to see you."

"Who?"

"Spoilers."

"River, just tell me who it is."

The curiosity rose even more as the golden haired woman smiled mysteriously and turned away from him to move to the door. Matt sighed and took a final glance at his half-finished screwdriver before covering it with a plastic box with a "Please Do Not Disturb" sign stolen from a hotel on its bottom before following the blonde out of the lab.

"Why can't you just tell me?"

"Because it spoils the fun," said River Song. She led the young scientist through the hallway and down the stairs into the cafeteria.

"I already ordered for you," she said as she tugged on Matt's hand to pull him towards a table where a tray with a plate of fish sticks and a bowl of custard could be seen, alongside River's purse which marked the table as being taken. .

"Fish sticks? Oh, River."

"Of course I bought you fish sticks. I had to buy you your custard from a separate store so that you could have your usual. You'd better thank me for this, Mr. Who."

"I love you so much, River Song."

"I know."

Matt turned to the table and sat down. It was only a minute or so before River noticed a very prominent figure amongst the plain haired people at the entrance of the cafeteria.

Someone with very, very red hair.

Matt knew only one person in his life that had that particular shade of ginger.

"Amelia Pond!" he laughed, jumping up from his seat and racing towards the other before completely encasing her in a tight hug, ignoring the fact that his shout of joy had brought the attention of more than half the cafeteria.

Behind him, River smiled fondly.

"Matt?" asked the redhead. "It's really you! My little Raggedy Boy!"

"Not so raggedy anymore, eh?" said Matt, his eyes dancing with little lights of excitement.

"And not so little anymore too," said the Pond. "Look at you, you're all grown up and tall and, and…"

"Oh, Amelia Pond," sighed the engineer, holding his friend at an arm's length. "Has anyone told you how Scottish you are? All these years living in England and you've still got the accent."

"And you," said Amy. "You're still gangly and floppy haired, and – what on Earth have you got on your neck?"

"It's a bowtie, bowties are cool."

"No, they aren't."

"They're very cool. Cooler than you can understand."

"And exactly how much can I understand?"

"Why don't we talk over it while we eat?" said River, smiling as she took Matt's hands off the ginger's shoulders.

"Yes, let's," said Amy. "What can I get here?"

"Well, normally you'd need a lunch ticket to eat here, but I'll give you mine," replied Matt as they sat back down around the table. He opened his wallet from his tweed jacket and took out a blue slip of paper from one of its pockets. "Here you go."

Amy ran off to order her food at the booth.

He remembered with an air of nostalgia as he thought how he and Amy had met the first time. He twelve at the time, but still had his childish curiosity that led to the whole fiasco. The Whos were on a family trip to one of their cousins in the country. He and his cousins had gone out to take a walk and play for a bit. He had meant to stay on the trail and follow his cousins well, but he got distracted by a badger that scuttled off the trail and had followed it without a second thought.

It wasn't his fault.

Badgers were_ cool_.

But his clumsiness wasn't. Even as a young boy, his limbs were awkward and would flop all over the place. He eventually lost the badger amongst the woods. And he had no idea where he was.

The tree branches caught on his pale blue shirt, his tie became crooked, had tripped over rocks and tree roots and ripped the knees of his pants. By the time he stumbled upon the town of Leadworth after an hour of weary walking, he was the very definition of raggedy.

That was how the seven year old Amelia Pond had found him, knocking on her door looking extremely tired and hungry. She gave him fish custard after he rejected all the other food in her house, and had let the tired boy sleep on her shoulders in the backseat of the car as her parents drove him back to his cousin's home.

When Matt awoke, they had already reached his cousin's. Matt gave Amy a small kiss on the cheek that made the redhead blush. He promised her that he'd see her again. They hadn't seen each other for fourteen years.

And after those long, long years of waiting, they were in front of each other again.

Well, not literally. But figuratively speaking, yes.

He broke out of his stupor when Amy set down a tray with a plate of spaghetti with tomato sauce and meatballs on top.

"Thank you, Matt," grinned Amy. "My little Raggedy Boy growing up and giving me a lunch ticket to me at a university. I still can't believe that you became a doctor, of all things. I always thought that you wanted to become a football player."

"Little Raggedy Boy is no longer an efficient name for him, don't you think?" said River. "We need to find him a new name."

"I like the Raggedy, let's keep the Raggedy."

"But I'm not raggedy any more. To hell with the raggedy, I'm tweed and bowtie now, and I look _cool_."

"Definitely raggedy," whispered River.

"Hey, I heard that."

"I know, sweetie."

"I thought I wasn't raggedy anymore."

"No, but your sense of fashion begs to differ."

"River, you're supposed to be on my side. Speaking of which, how do you two know each other?"

"She's my cousin, didn't you know?" Amy replied.

"Cousin? _Cousin_?"

"I missed you when you first met Amy," sighed River as she caught drops of custard off her fingers. "I was out of town that day."

"You lived in_ Leadworth_?"

"Of course I did. Where did you think I came from?"

"I – I don't know, somewhere around, but Leadworth – _Leadworth_!"

"She was my best friend, too. Her original name was Melody Pond, but then she changed her name. I quite like River Song, it has a mysterious side to it."

"Melody Pond?"

"I know," purred River.

"_Melody Pond_?"

"I think we should stop talking, I don't want to see you when you're surprised," said Amy with the air of exaggerated seriousness. "Let's see what we have; Raggedy Matt, Raggedy Man, and… What else do we have, River?"

"Well, he's a doctor now, so maybe the Raggedy Doctor," the archeologist said, reaching over for one of the fish sticks on Matt's plate.

"Ooh, I like that. The Raggedy Doctor," said Amy, nibbling on a meatball.

Matt grumbled something about not being raggedy anymore and how nobody took him seriously. River threw her head back and laughed. Amy laughed softly before reaching over and kissing the disgruntled engineer on the forehead, pushing the messy bangs aside very gently.

"My Raggedy Man," whispered Amy. "My beautiful Raggedy Doctor."

Fourteen years was definitely worth a wait, she thought.


	4. Seeing Red

**Before we start this chapter, here's a quick note to how this story will be updated; my exams start this Wednesday and finishes after Friday. I might get a chapter in after that, and then the week after, I have my SAT subject exam to go for, which means that depending on how much I spend studying, I might again, be able to upload another chapter.**

**After that, I go to an MUN conference in Hague, which means that, voila, I'll be gone a whole week, with possibly no updates.**

**But we'll see! I might be able to get in a total of two or three chapters until the first week of February, but no guarantees. It all depends on how much I procrastinate on my studies.**

**Now on the subject of the new chapter:**

**My excuses to all who may or may not have been shocked by what happens to Matt in this chapter. This _is_ a little different from what the previous chapters, but hopefully it'll become the main base for me to build my story on. I'm a horrible writer, and the only way that I could think of getting other characters involved in the plot was like this.**

**Again, apologies to all.**

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**Chapter 4 – Seeing Red**

While the two remaining brothers got along quite well, there tended to be small scuffles when they were usually around. Their fights ranged from anything to everything, including articles of clothing, food, their sonic, articles of clothing, books, knowledge, and occasionally, articles of clothing.

But sometimes they grew big. But they always started with something small. Every catastrophe started with a tiny trigger of a bullet that would grow into a cannonball.

On that particular time, it was their soccer teams. It was such an innocent topic, too! The two were alone in the flat, munching away on a bowl of crisps as they watched a soap opera that their mother had left on before she left for grocery shopping. They had argued back and forth, discussing which one was better, and the topic shifted to Matt's soccer abilities. Then that changed to how the youngest stopped playing soccer. Then that evolved into _why _he had stopped playing soccer. And that was when things became ugly.

"You never apologized," Matt had said, and David's gaze snapped to face his brother properly.

"Apologize?" David asked, confusion on his features. "For what?

"You were never there when I woke up in the hospital, ten years ago."

"That doesn't necessarily mean that I wasn't there."

"Doesn't it?"

"I went out to take walks and maybe we just happened to miss each other!"

"But did you?"

"Did I what?"

"Go out for walks?"

"Of course I did, don't be stupid."

"Don't tell me that they were all due to walks."

"No, but I was very busy."

It was at this point that Matt raised himself up on his arms to look at David properly. Something was wrong. Something was off.

"Doing what?" he had asked.

"Trying to get into medical school, perhaps?"

"John was always there!"

"Well, I'm not John, I'm sorry, but I'm David."

"But you still didn't say sorry."

"What was there to be sorry for?"

There was a complete silence in the living room, except for a cry of anguish that came from the soap opera on television. Anyone else in the room would have sworn that he would have heard a pin drop onto the floor.

"What was there to be sorry for?" repeated Matt slowly with a strange expression of a mixture of tearing up and smiling that he knew was on his face. "You, you – I knew that you were possibly heartless, but this time, this time –"

"Well, maybe I could if you tell me what I did!"

"Oh, now you're definitely heartless."

"_What did I do?_"

Another silence between the two. The television had been turned off by the remote control that was now gripped tightly in Matt's hand. How could David be so ignorant? How could he be so stupid? How could he do this to him?

Something bubbled up inside him, and all of his sudden, his rib cage felt too tight for his heart which he swore was beating twice as fast as normal speed. And all this time, his eyes have been misting over, making his vision become slightly blurrier by every moment.

"Look at you," he gasped out, eyes wet with tears. David reached out, presumably to wipe away his brother's eyes, but the he flinched away, not wanting for his brother to touch him. David stared back dumbly. "Look at you, you've practically ruined my life, and now you're asking me what you did."

"What?" Was that really David's voice? But it sounded so faint…

Matt was unable to reply. David extended his hand to his sibling again, this time towards his shoulder, but Matt shrugged him off.

"Don't touch me," he said, before grabbing his tweet jacket and keys before running out the door, narrowly avoiding a bewildered Tardis, who called out to her youngest son as she clutched several bags of grocery.

And that had been two days ago. He hadn't gone back to his apartment since then.

Honestly, he couldn't believe that David could pretend all that and not feel guilty. He very nearly ruined his _life_. Pushed him off a flight of stairs which led him to his back injury, and made him give up playing football.

How could David be so _ignorant_?

That was the only thought that had gone through the past two days as he could focus very little on anything else. He knew that David was arrogant, – they all were – he knew that David was forgetful at times, - but so was he – but this was one button pressed one too many times.

He didn't want to go back home just yet. He couldn't face David, not when he felt so _hurt_ inside.

The world must hate him so, if it made him feel hurt now after ten years the incident happened. It hadn't hurt so much before. So why did it hurt now?

So Matt sat down in his labs, working away on a new project or a modification that might be useful, until the end of the day when he could return back to his and his friend's flat, which both he and his friend paid for the rent for now. But sometimes he didn't want to go back to the flat; he just wanted to stay in the labs and work away until he forgot everything else except for what he was doing.

That was why the janitor always pushed the protesting Matt out of the building, then proceeded to tell him off about staying late at night in the university laboratories, how it was a public building and therefore everybody had to use it the same way, and that also meant that Matt had to leave at the same time as everybody else, which Matt had not done.

Matt failed to see the point. He still had work to do in his lab, there were still research papers that were waiting to be written on the desk of his office, and in his mind, public buildings weren't public until everybody got to use them whenever they wanted to.

But the janitor won't let him back in and they've changed the locks to _wood_. Apparently, somebody told the university about how his sonic screwdriver didn't have a _wood setting_. Well, that was disappointing.

It wasn't even that late, it was only ten in the night; plenty could be done even at that hour, thought Matt as he took a shortcut and slipped into an alley. He glanced at the bakery across from him where he sometimes bought snacks for his mother – he had known from when he was young that he and Tardis shared a sweet tooth. Sometimes Matt would sneak sweets from the pantry, but his clumsiness always gave him away.

Tardis called him "her thief" ever since.

Matt looked away, a scowl prominent on his baby-like features. Thinking about his mother made him think back to his idiotic human being that he called a brother, the one reason for him not returning home for.

How _dare_ he say that to him?

His grumpy mood was now even more ruined by sour thoughts of his brother. And he had been so happy with seeing both River and Amy that afternoon, too.

He sighed, glaring at the bakery one more time before his eyes caught onto something else.

Several shadows stood in the small alleyway. Matt briefly registered two men and one woman and that the men were hardly being friendly to the woman before he stumbled back and knocked over an empty glass bottle.

Damn.

The shadows snapped to where he was standing and Matt suddenly felt very conscious of himself.

"Uh, hello," he called aloud to the shadows as he walked towards them. He could now see that the woman was deathly pale as one of the men had gripped her by the throat, steadily choking her.

That wasn't good.

"Hi, hello," said Matt as he neared the two men. "I'm sorry, but what exactly are you two doing?"

One of the men grimaced at him. "Piss off."

"Yes, well, the thing is, I think that you're trying to harm this lady over here and, as a human being who's had the pleasure of indulging in the education of morality, I don't think I'll be able to."

The shadows stared, even the woman whose air was slowly being cut off.

"It's none of your business," said the other man. "What happens here doesn't concern you."

The first man suddenly looked back at Matt, as if he'd seen him for the first time. Then he looked at him up and down and Matt felt even more self-conscious than the first time.

"Yeah," said the man. "But you look like a good little mama's boy; I'll bet that you have plenty of money in those pockets too."

Matt's non-existent eyebrows flew into his hair.

"My money? Oh, you mean that you're going to mug me! Oh, okay, alright. No, not alright, not alright at all."

It was at this point that alarm bells started to ring in his head. His first instincts were to run, but his gaze drifted over to the woman that glared at him, daring to do so, and the light from a far away streetlamp was only just enough to show him that her hair was red.

He had always liked red hair.

So he needed a plan. A good plan, not a bad plan. It had to be something simple, but brilliant, and not complicated. Complicated meant all the more reasons why the plan could go wrong.

A plan.

Get the girl and run.

With that, he threw himself onto the other man who gave a yell of surprise as released his capture. The engineer turned and tugged on the woman's arm, who wheezed as air hit her lungs.

"Run," said Matt and pulled the woman along. Behind them, the two men could be heard chasing after them. He vaguely caught the silver glint of a blade as he glanced behind him.

Oh great, they had a knife.

They weaved in and out of alleyways, desperately trying to get away. The pattering feet and growls could be heard very close by, and Matt was scared, terrified even, but the rush of adrenaline excited him and he was never one to resist anything exciting.

Why did he have to _be_ like this?

He turned a corner and immediately spotted a small gap between the two buildings and pushed his new found companion inside before the evil men could come around the corner themselves while his brain immediately formulated new possibilities for them to be safe.

"Now listen here," said Matt, desperately trying to catch his breath with both hands on the woman's shoulders. "Get to the nearest police station, the closest one is just five blocks down, move straight across the alleyways and you'll be standing on a big street in no time. Tell them what you've seen, what those men had done to you. Go. You'll be safe there."

"But what about you?"

"Don't worry, I'll be okay. I'm the King of Okays."

"Don't be stupid, you'll come with me," she argued back.

"Nah, I won't, but I assure you that your safety is guaranteed the moment you start heading towards the police."

"And why is that?"

"Because I'm going to distract them."

He ran off, letting his chasers catch a glimpse of him before rushing down the road and stumbling into alley after alley. He could still hear two pairs of footsteps behind him and was secretly glad that the two men hadn't noticed that the woman was missing and hadn't thought of going after her instead. They'd taken him as the bait. Now if he could find a police station himself -

He turned another corner.

"Oh no," he softly gasped out as his eyes turned down what he presumed was another alleyway.

Except there_ wasn't_ one.

He was trapped in a dead end.

A very scary dead end with a graffiti of an angel with its eyes covered with its hands.

Matt turned around, but his attackers had already come close, affectively leaving him to back away against the wall, against the graffiti. He pressed his back against it, hoping that the wall would open up and let him through, leaving the two men behind.

Of course it didn't.

He looked up into the faces of both men, trying to take mental photographic memory to remember their faces. Even in times like this, he couldn't stop being a genius like he was.

If he got out of this, the two men would pay for attacking the woman - and him, he thought as he panicked - who would probably be safe by now.

_If_.

One of them still held the knife.

Why couldn't he open his mouth now and reason with them? Negotiate? Possibilities of succeeding? Less than likely. Better not to try.

"Thought you could outrun us, didn't you? Too bad you didn't. We'd love to let you go, but we can't," said the taller one, and even in the dim light Matt could see the whites of his eyes. "You'd be tellin' the police."

"So we'll just have to finish you off here," finished the other, twirling the knife in his hand with the air of someone having practiced the matter countless times, before lunging forward with the blade pointing straight towards Matt's stomach.

The knife entered his abdomen and his mouth opened to scream in pain, but let out a strangled gasp instead.

Then the attacker - Matt could see his features quite clearly now, and now it would be burned into his skull forever - had twisted and pulled the blade out, leaving him to collapse on the pavement with the blood pouring from the wound. Then he was pulled onto his knees by his hair and the knife entered him again, was twisted again, then was pulled out again, leaving another gap between his skin.

He vaguely remembered the two men looking down at him with satisfaction before pulling out his wallet from his top pocket and running away, down the alleyways and most likely onto a main street, where the crowd would hide them from the police.

So they had mugged him anyway.

He vaguely remembered clapping one hand over the gaping wound and pulling out his mobile phone from his tweed jacket with the other. His hands were slippery with his own blood and were shaking so terribly, but he hoped that he could at least tell somebody about his condition. Even that red headed woman that he had hopefully saved tonight wouldn't be able to tell the police his whereabouts now.

His hand scrabbled on the keypad and pressed 1 on speed dial as he hissed out in pain, squeezing the wound with the hand that wasn't occupied with the phone in attempt to stem the blood. He couldn't even turn over on his back.

The phone kept ringing.

Matt felt his conscious slipping. Everything was starting to be blurry.

Then the phone stopped ringing.

"Hello? Matt?" said the person on the other line. Despite everything that Matt had thrown at him in his head earlier that night, he was never gladder to hear the Scottish accent.

It was strange, he thought idly in his mind, how he had avoided David for the last two days and now the only person he wanted to speak to was David. Because David could find him. Because David wasn't as stupid as Matt kept telling everyone he was. He would put together that Matt's phone was a smartphone and would go on the internet to track it down, leading him straight to Matt.

"David," he breathed as he let out another strangled gasp between his teeth.

"Matt? Matt, what's wrong?"

"David," he said. "Hurts."

"What? Matt, is something wrong? What hurts? Did you hurt yourself?"

He wanted to say more, but those were the only two words that could come out. What was wrong with his mouth? What had reduced his ability to speak? Was it the pain? The deep gashes on his stomach told him that it was probably the correct to assume so.

He vaguely remembered the alleyway suddenly shining very brightly from a torch, and a cry from a quite familiar redhead that he knew from earlier that night, and wondered briefly in his mind how she had found him. He remembered several other figures alongside her, his swirling vision barely making sense out of the word that started with a P on their clothes.

He vaguely remembered his phone slipping from his fingers as David's questions became more frantic and desperate and louder for his brother. He vaguely remembered the redheaded woman rushing to him even before the police did and turned him over even as the black spots at the edge of his vision became wider and more numerous.

How? How had she found him? How?

Somebody picked up his phone. Somebody squeezed his hand and told him to stay with them. But he couldn't stay. Going to sleep was too tempting.

He let the darkness take over.

The blood splattered graffiti of the angel was still weeping when the ambulance arrived.


	5. Late Night Meetings

**Guess who's back! Sorry for the lack of updates, but I'm afraid I was very busy with the exams and all, but I still managed to write this up. I'm actually uploading this from the airport in Paris, and I have less than fifteen minutes of free wifi to upload this chapter.**

**But here we go! And thank you for all the lovely reviews from the last chapter, you guys are absolutely the greatest readers I've ever had. I love all of you, very, very much.**

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**Chapter 5 – Late Night Meetings**

Rory's shift had finished half an hour ago. He had changed out of his nurse scrubs to his everyday clothes, had a drink from the vending machine with his fellow colleagues and was about to go back home where his fiancé was waiting for him. But he was just walking past the emergency corridor when he spotted someone peeking agitatedly into the surgery room at the end, and Rory couldn't help but let his nurse instincts kick in and comfort him.

"Hey," he started, and the man quickly turned around and he saw that the man's eyes were red and were brimming with tears.

"Hey," the man replied. "I was just… waiting." Rory noticed the light Scottish accent that was laid within his slightly tear-muddled speech. The accent led his mind back to his Amy, but he dismissed that thought. There was someone who needed his help.

Well, not really. But he could help him to ease off the tension. Whomever the man was waiting for was likely to be close to him, and Rory knew how it felt to be standing outside the surgery room, feeling beaten up by all the tension in the air.

"You look like you could use a drink, mate," said Rory, and the stranger gave a feeble attempt at smiling in response.

"I don't think that's a good idea," he said, looking down at his shoes, tears splashing down onto them. "That's my brother in there. They've just brought him in and I need to stay sober and wait for my family until they get here. I phoned my parents and my other brother. And Matt's girlfriend."

"Are they coming in soon?"

"I don't know. I really don't know."

The man look so lost and confused, that Rory couldn't help but reach out to pat him on the shoulders. The spiky haired man looked up and attempted to smile again.

"I should have been in there," he said, nodding towards the doors at the end of the corridor. Rory looked at him in confusion. "I'm a doctor. But not the surgical kind. I changed my ambitions when I was studying in university and decided that I didn't want to form operations on anyone… I always thought that surgical knives were a bit dangerous. They can be used as weapons too, those knives. And now my brother –"

His voice broke, and he seemed to be struggling with himself. Rory had to resist the temptation to pat the older man on the head.

"Hey," said Rory. "It's all right. Whatever's going on, it'll be alright. Matt – you said his name was Matt, right? He's in the hospital. Your brother will get through the surgery just fine."

"I don't know," the man said. He played with the pocket flap of the trench coat that he was wearing. "I really don't know. The people who found him said that he was pretty hurt by the time they found him… I should've found him sooner. My brother was counting on me to find him; I should have found him first."

"It's okay," said Rory.

"No, it isn't. It's my fault. I don't know what happened, but it's my fault. I know it is, I can feel it. Right here, you know?" The pinstriped man pointed at where Rory knew was his heart. "I can feel it, in my heart. There's something that I'm missing that caused all this to happen in the first place. But it's too difficult to see through the foggy bits of my memory."

Rory wasn't sure if he understood what the man was talking about anymore, but he still nodded. Then his head replayed the first few bits that the man had said, and he immediately frowned.

"But what do you mean, it's your fault? What did you do?"

"I don't know," whispered the man as he wiped away his tears with the sleeve of his coat. "But I do know that if it wasn't for the fight that we had a few days ago, none of this would have happened. He would have come home sooner, and maybe he would've been safe, and maybe none of this would've happened."

"Look," said Rory, feeling slightly exasperated with the man. "Whatever happened today, it's not your fault. Blaming yourself isn't going to make the situation any better. So, whatever it is, just wish for the best for Matt and know that it'll be alright."

The man shifted his posture and straightened up. He was quite tall, Rory noted. And thin. Skinny.

"Thank you," he said, fixing his sleeves and collar on his trench coat. "I think I feel better, now. Can I catch your name?"

"Rory. Rory Williams."

"Rory Williams. Nice to meet you, Mr. Williams, I'm David Who. Maybe I can take you out for a drink sometimes? As a thank you?"

"Uh, it was nothing, you don't really need to," replied the nurse. "It's sort of my job to… you know."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I work here, I'm a nurse."

"So I might run into you again," smiled David, despite the tears on his cheeks that had still not been wiped away.

"Yeah, you might see me just rushing around the hospital. I actually only just started here, but yeah. Not late into the nights though, my shift ends at around midnight."

"That's still very late," remarked David.

"Helping people never really stops."

David's smile weakened visibly. "You think so?" he asked, as if he was almost afraid to ask the question. Rory frowned again at David, confused with as why David turned so serious once more.

"Yeah," he said, nodding. "Yeah, of course. You just continue. You can always start helping, but there isn't a… fixed time to when you stop."

David looked lost again.

"You know," continued Rory, "That thing. Even when you think you're not helping others, or when you don't do anything or even make things worse, it's only like… taking the batteries out of a clock, or something like that. You can always put the batteries back in, and the clock starts again. It can start again. That interval, it's not stopping. It's pausing."

David still looked confused. Rory resisted the temptation to sigh and shrugged his shoulders instead.

"That's what I think," he finished. "That's sort of… my philosophy. It could be different for others, but that's what I believe in."

There was a pause where David looked back down at his shoes. Rory wondered if he had said something wrong and had started to go back to what he had rambled on about in his head when David looked up again.

The look in David's eyes was not questioning his philosophy. It was questioning Rory.

"That's actually very wise," said David, very quietly. Rory could hardly hear him. "Very wise. Very… deep. Very meaningful."

"Yeah, well," said Rory. "That's what you get from reading books that are over two thousand years old. Philosophical."

"It's very nice. I think I can pick up on that."

"That's good," Rory replied; he was glad that somebody else agreed with him.

"You should be a… counselor, help others get through their problems, that kind of thing."

"I think that's part of my job."

"Yeah, well. I think you're good enough to be a counselor, you can counsel me."

"Hey, sure, why not?"

"Will I see you again?"

"I work here, remember?"

"Oh, yeah, right," said David.

"Okay. I've got to go now, I'll catch you later?" asked Rory.

"I think so, I'll be visiting my brother a lot," David answered, as Rory raised his hand to say goodbye to him.

"Well, see you then."

Rory's heart felt warm with the thoughts that he had helped someone else today. He felt good. He felt brilliant. And with that, Rory Williams walked away from the white corridor that led to the surgery room to go to his flat.

Or attempted to.

Because at that moment, River Song rushed into that particular part of the hospital, with his Amy Pond hot on her heels.

And there was a great deal of explanation as Christopher and Idris ran in, right behind the two.

"Okay, so," said Rory, and Christopher could tell that the nurse was still trying to get the situation organized in his head. "Your brother," he said, pointing to David. "Is my fiancé's cousin's boyfriend."

"Simply put, yeah," said David. Christopher could see that his eldest son was mentally beating himself up with how the situation appeared to be. He could see none of the shaken version of him that Rory had described. The nurse did a good job of cheering him up, thought the father.

"Well, we're all here now," he announced with his arms crossed in his black leather jacket.

"Except for John," David muttered darkly. Sure enough, there was a lack of a head full of brown spiky hair amongst the gathered ones.

"We phoned him," said his wife, one hand clutching at where her heart was with the other on the bench where she was sitting on. He walked over and sat down and put his arm around her. Idris's posture softened slightly, but the woman was still very teary eyed.

"He said that he'd be on his way with Rose," Christopher said, rubbing Idris's shoulders. "He should be here in about half an hour."

Rory still stood in the corner, shaking his head. "What a consequence this is," he said quietly, but the sound carried in the silent corridor and everyone could hear him.

"Even I didn't see this coming, what are the chances of you meeting Raggedy Man's brother in this hospital?" said the red haired Scottish girl, and Chris needed a moment before remembering that one of Matt's friends were with them at the moment, waiting for the surgery to end.

And his girlfriend's cousin.

Speaking of Matt's girlfriend, she looked quite angry at the state that Matt had turned out to be in. River was always so strong, so protective over the youngest Who. The couple was both clever and brilliant in their own ways, but with Matt's innocence doubled with his physical aspect of clumsiness, River had always been the one that had been looking out for him.

Christopher wasn't sure if he remembered their first meeting correctly. They had met during their last year in university, that was for certain. There was a lot of things involved, including Matt getting poisoned somehow in the middle of his experiment with somewhat less than dependable chemicals and River figuring out how to create an antidote with the other half of the chemicals in the lab. Altogether, their first meeting was quite disastrous.

River wasn't even supposed to be in the chemistry labs in the first place. But that was all in the past now. None of that mattered.

She did, however, look very, very upset at the present predicament.

"What really happened?" asked the blond archeologist, and the temperature around them suddenly seemed to drop about twenty degrees. Even he, the eldest in the room and his tough personality was slightly afraid of Professor River Song at the moment.

"The police phoned me," said David, appearing to have shaken off the chills that River's question had brought. "Or rather, they picked up the call where Matt dropped off. They told me that he was hurt, something involving muggers and another woman and such. From what they got from the woman, Matt walked right into where she was being mugged and ran away from the attackers. They split up and she phoned the police, and Matt led the attackers away."

"And that's when he got hurt?"

"They stabbed him."

"With a knife?" asked Amy.

"What else would they have stabbed him with?" hissed David, his eyes flashing. Christopher saw the Scottish girl flinch and step back.

"What else?" he asked before David could let his anger out onto someone else.

"That's all I know. They didn't really tell me anything else, just that and the hospital and some of their police business."

"What about the person that Matt saved?" asked Rory. "What happened to her? Where is she?"

"At the police, I suppose," guessed Chris, looking towards David to see if he was correct. David nodded.

"The police told me that they're going to start their investigations with her," muttered David. "The alleyway where the woman was getting mugged was dark, so they wanted Matt to participate in it, to see if he knows their faces and whatnot."

"That's bad," came David's voice, but the eldest Who was sure that David's mouth wasn't moving. "That's rather ignorant of them."

The six people in the corridor all turned around to see David's carbon copy and a young blond girl walk towards them.

"John," said David in greeting before anyone else, his voice rather cold.

"David," replied John, nodding towards his twin brother, his expression failing at David's tone.

"Hello, John," said Christopher, intervening in whatever fight was brewing between the twin brothers. "You arrived early."

"I'm sure I broke a few traffic laws, but that doesn't matter," John said. The father's eyes darted to the blonde next to him, and noticed that she was slightly lout of breath.

"I'm sorry that John put you through such torture," he said in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere. It slightly worked. Rose grinned at him before walking over to David and hugging him lightly.

"It wasn't that bad," she said. "It was actually very exciting. Like an adventure."

"Everything's an adventure," John replied, a stupid grin on his features. Chris mentally face palmed at his son's incapability to stay composed and neutral in front of his soon-to-be bride.

"Hello, Rose dear," said Idris, looking up from where she had been rubbing at her eyes for the last few minutes, her eyes red and watery. "Hello, Tenny."

"Hi, mum," smiled John, feeling slightly bashful at Idris's nickname for him. Christopher smiled and watched the two women embrace each other.

"What were you saying?" said River, and oh look, the temperature dropped again. The woman was very good at being intimidating when it came to her man being hurt. "You were saying something about that not being good. What's not good?"

"Psychologically," replied John smoothly, his job as a psychologist kicking in. "The situation could have caused Matt a trauma and Matt might not be able to cope with the investigation well enough."

"But that's assuming that he'll make it through the surgery in the first place," said Chris, then mentally slapped himself, angry at himself for saying something so stupid. The other people in the room looked at him in horror.

"Christopher Eccleston Who!" cried his wife and he bowed his head down in shame at the sight of his wife's anger being directed at him. "What a thing to say!"

"I was being realistic," said Christopher, feeling uneasy at all the glares that were being sent his way.

"Well, let's be optimistic instead," cut in Rose before others could start chewing him out. Not that he didn't deserve it. It was really a horrible thing to say. Rose's intervention didn't stop the fiery glances that were being shot is way. Christopher could still feel eyes on the back of his shaved head as he turned around to look back at the surgery room doors.

The surgery room doors opened.

They whirled around, eager for any news.

"I'm terribly sorry," said a nurse, who walked out in his scrubs. The group froze at his words. Christopher's brain started whizzing as possible results flashed in his mind. Had something happened? Did the surgery go wrong? Of course there was that statement that he made just less than a minute ago, but that was from his carelessness, from his stupidity. Surely Matt would pull through?

But the nurse continued to speak.

"We need to replace the blood that the patient had lost," he said, his green surgery clothes looking odd in the white corridor. "But there are none for his blood type at the moment, and we think that it might be too late to ask for substitutes from the nearest hospital. Is there by any chance that anyone in the family has the same blood type as the patient?"

The father in the leather jacket felt his blood run cold. He was an AO. Idris was a BO. Both David and John were AB.

And Matt was OO. It was ridiculous. None of their blood could help Matt.

Even as Christopher said these facts out loud, Idris started to cry once more. Even the twins looked glum with Rose standing in between them, with a tragic expression on her face.

The sinking feeling in his chest whispered that perhaps, it was too late for Matt.

The nurse sighed and told them that they would try their best and started to go back behind the doors, eyeing each of them again, looking desperate. That was how everybody felt. Desperate. He certainly felt desperate. He would do anything to save his son, but this was apparently one of those instances where he had no effect, regardless of what he did.

"Does it have to be family's blood?" River suddenly asked, looking as something had struck her. The nurse poked his head back out.

"No, but there are some other factors that could determine the blood as useful in these kind of situations. Are you a blood type O?"

"Yes!"

"And so am I!" cried Amy, both women suddenly looking elated at this sudden revelation. The corridor suddenly seemed to light up by the joyful expressions of the two women.

"We'll have to check and see if we can really use your blood donations, but we're grateful all the same," said the nurse, and headed down the corridor, motioning to both of them to come with him. The two women followed without losing a beat.

"Oh," whispered Idris softly, clutching her husband in a tight grip as the three disappeared. "He's going to be okay. My thief is going to be okay."

And while there were some confused looks exchanged between the people who weren't Whos at the mother calling Matt as a thief, they all murmured in consent. Even the astrologist himself couldn't hold back a few tears of relief that threatened to break out.

His son was going to be alright.


	6. Subject Tabooed

**I'm sorry for such a long hiatus! I've been trying to catch up on my schoolwork, and I think I've finally got it sorted. **

**This chapter's a bit of a jumble; it's boring, and it's repetitive and I'm so sorry for such a boring chapter, but I'll try to make the next one a little more exciting with some new characters.**

**Now off we go. **

* * *

**Chapter 6 – Subject Tabooed**

A few of days ago, John had returned home from the fight that he and his brother had. As always, his Rose was standing there in the doorway, hands on her hips with a bright grin on her face.

John could barely smile back at her.

Rose, of course, had picked it up right away. She asked what was wrong and wouldn't let John go until he explained to her what had happened in David's office that day. John could barely resist. He was tired, both emotionally and physically, and he let out what happened, although he was careful enough to leave the bit where he told David that he had planned to propose to Rose.

And Rose listened. When he was done, she patted him on the back, letting him know that it was nothing to be upset about. Knowing David, he would soon forgive John. Afterwards, she scolded him – after all, John's actions towards David wasn't at all innocent.

She was upset with him, John could tell. Despite what he had told David about proposing to Rose, he wasn't dumb enough to do it when the person in question was upset with him. He was going to wait awhile, phone David, and apologize to him. Then he would get down on one knee with a beautiful ring and ask for Rose's consent.

He hadn't expected his mother to call him, just a few days later.

She had called him to inform him that his brother had caught in an accident. Of course, John's first instinct was to panic and to be worried for his brother.

But then his mother told him that David was the one who was currently at the hospital, waiting for them all while Matt was in surgery. It was then that his train of thought turned to how David might have reacted to the situation.

He remembered the last incident, certainly well. The school day had ended. David and John's extra chemistry lesson and Matt's football practice had just finished, so they had been all walking back home together. The three siblings were walking up the stairs up to their old apartment when the fight started. One innocent thing had led to the other, and it all broke out into the subject of David's temper. That always seemed to be the case, John sadly remembered.

"Tell me, Matthew," David had said through his teeth. John had noted with some dread of how David had addressed Matt. "What do you know about keeping your temper under control?"

"It's certainly better than your method, which involves in hurting other people's feelings in the process," Matt retorted back.

"Oh, don't make me laugh," said David with a sarcastic grin on his face. "You'd pick up a gun if you were allowed to and shoot whoever gets in your temper."

"Funny, because I've never seen a real gun in my life, so why don't you shut up?"

"You think nobody ever saw you fighting with the Daleks outside the field?" As those words left David's mouth, Matt's expression suddenly turned cold.

The Daleks were the football team from a school in the town of Skaro, which was very close to Gallifrey, where the boys lived. Every season, the football teams from all the other schools in the area would come together to have a tournament, and every season, no matter what year, no matter how good the other teams were, the ones left for the final match were the Daleks and the Time Lords.

There was so much rivalry between the two school's football teams, that it eventually spread through the schools, and later through the towns themselves. There was so much hate between the two towns, it was impossible to go to Skaro while making it known that you were from Gallifrey, or vise versa.

It was hard not to hate the villagers of Skaro. Even John disliked the school there. He thought that the teaching method there only raised hate and anger from the students and turned them to hate everything.

So of course Matt would hate the Daleks. Not only because of the rivalry between the two towns, but because he was part of the football team where this war between Skaro and Gallifrey started. It was only natural that at David's jab towards Matt's temper towards the Daleks, something sparked within the football player to ignite a flare.

"Leave football out of this," Matt growled.

"Why, because it's the only thing you're good at? Oh, Matt, poor little Matt. All he knows is how to kick the ball around."

"Excuse you, but if you've ever paid attention, then you might have noticed that I get the highest marks in my entire grade, so your argument is invalid."

"Why should I care about your grades? It's your future, not mine."

"Exactly. See how contradicting you are to yourself?"

David laughed dryly. "Don't make me angry, Matthew, or I'll make sure that you'll never be able to kick another ball in your life." It was at this point that John had given up trying to wait for the two to finish their arguing and started up the stairs instead. But the fight continued.

So he wasn't there when it happened. He was nearly at the door of their family apartment when David's shouts and Matt's scream reached him. He remembered rushing down the stairs to where the both his older and younger brother had been fighting, only to find the latter on the floor unconscious, eyes shut in pain with the elder hovering anxiously nearby.

"What did you do? What the_ hell_ did you do?" John had screamed to his twin brother, and David merely stood there, pressed against the walls of the stairs, tears pouring down his face as he kept muttering, "I didn't want to, I didn't know…"

"Help me instead of doing nothing, you git!" John hissed out, his rare anger flaring out at his identical copy. It was only then that David rushed to the nearest floor and knocked on the first apartment to ask them to borrow their phone to call the ambulance.

Even in his panicking state, John could tell that there was no concussion. The hospital later reaffirmed that. But as he and David waited for their parents in front of the emergency room, he probably should have made sure that David was okay, too.

It was a mistake that John would regret for ages to come.

John should definitely comforted David that day.

As John had started to research and read up on psychology, he theorized that since the incident was so traumatizing to David, he covered it up with other things. He buried it under clubs, homework, projects and other junk, and had eventually wiped it away from his mind. As John told this theory to his parents and a very quiet Matt, he couldn't help but think that it was just as if the entire happening of the accident was being covered up, albeit very badly.

From that day on, David never mentioned the incident again. He went on with his normal life, went to school, did his homework and sometimes visited Matt at the hospital, but the subject of what happened in the apartment was never brought up from him again.

Following his example, none of the other family members did so either.

The subject became tabooed.

But that didn't stop them from thinking about it. And to the rest of the family who did remember, it became the day that never was.

And the day that never was, was never to be mentioned, for it was a day that never was.

Oo0oO

As David in front of the hallway where Matt's room was, he couldn't help but notice how the other members of his family had kept shooting looks at him, as if they expected him to burst into tears. And that made David very, very confused.

He was just _fine_.

Rory had gone home with Amy. The redhead was reluctant to leave her friend at the hospital, but after some persuasion from her fiancé with promises that they would call her as soon as anything happened, she left with Rory, who kept rubbing circles on her back to comfort her.

John had persuaded his parents to take Rose to their apartment as well. Their mother, in particular, refused, and David could see why; no mother would want to leave her child at such a vulnerable state. But in the end, their father had tugged on her shoulders, and left with his former love and his mother home.

Their father came back as soon as he dropped the women at home, though. He sent a message to one of his fellow researchers that he would be absent that day, explaining the situation. John and David had also called in sick, being sure that they would be unable to stay awake during office hours. Even if they did, they felt that they wouldn't be able to focus on their work, anyways.

So now the three Whos were left in the corridor, sitting there silently, as the only female figure amongst the former crowd watched them.

Honestly, the woman set him on edge. Her eyes shot right though him, and he always felt like he was being searched. He couldn't help but feel that she knew much more than he did, even though she was just an archeologist. And to think that he used to laugh at the idea of archeologists!

A shiver ran through David as he looked up and his eyes met the cold, calculating eyes of River Song.

So he ducked his head back down and looked towards John, who sat right next to him. He felt River's gaze turn away towards his brother, and he felt sympathetic towards his brother. John's head ducked down as well, and the twins' eyes met each other and they communicated silently, both agreeing that they should stay away from the curly haired woman as much as possible.

David started to formulate a plan – maybe he could get tea or coffee for them? It would certainly get him away from the cold atmosphere in the corridor.

But before he could set his plan to motion, River Song's voice rose in form of a question.

"Is it just me," she said. "Or do I have a feeling that this sort of thing might have happened in the family before?"

David raised his head in confusion. His father's and John's snapped up in what David recognized as surprise.

"How did you know?" The family's eldest male asked slowly. River gave a knowing smile.

"I didn't," she said. "But thank you for telling me."

David swore that he could see a giant thought bubble with a swear word right above his father's head. John's expression merely turned to that of exasperation.

For the umpteenth time that night, David was very confused.

"When Matt hurt his back, yes. He fell from the stairs when he was coming up to the flat," said David, watching the expressions of his father and his sibling very closely.

He saw John shoot a look towards his father, and his father replying back with a small frown. Out of the corner of his eye, he could tell that River Song was also confused, but possibly for a different reason.

"He fell from the stairs," she stated, and by the way that John ducked his head between his knees and how Chris uncrossed and crossed his arms, David could tell very easily that the answer to River's blunt question-like statement was, yes, it had indeed happened before.

But by the way that his father and his brother kept shooting looks at each other, there was obviously something that they were hiding from him. What was it?

"I'm not stupid, you know," he finally blurted out. The two men looked up in surprise. The archeologist simply glanced at the physician. "There's something that you two are hiding, I can feel it. And I can tell, because it's obvious by the way that you two are trying to communicate with eyebrows."

The two continued to be silent, although John did give David an apologetic look. David thought that by the way his shoulders were slumped, John was feeling guilty about something.

But guilty about what?

David sighed before standing up and straightening his brown pinstripe suit. He could feel everyone's eyes on him, so he just shrugged and told them that he was going to get some tea. That seemed to satisfy them, so he was allowed to slip away from the corridor and down the stairs towards the bar that was right outside the hospital.

It was only when he reached the hospital doors that he realized that John had followed him.

"What?" asked David, and it was a moment too late when he figured that he had been too blunt.

But John didn't seem to mind. Or if he did, he certainly didn't show it.

"River and Dad went inside," said John. "The doctor didn't want too many of us crowding in with him at once, so I just came down to come and get tea with you."

"What's the point," stated David. "Of limiting visitors when the person in question is currently unconscious?"

"I don't know," said John. "Maybe they're worried that by pushing so many people inside the same room, the equipment might become damaged?"

"Dunno."

"Yeah, me neither."

They walked down to the pub, but the pub didn't have the tea that they wanted. So they went to a convenience store next doors and bought a can of Red Bull each.

"Not tea, but it'll do," David remarked as he gulped down the yellowish liquid.

"Hmm," replied John in response. David flattened the aluminum can between his hands and threw it into the can bin. When he straightened up, he caught John staring, who turned his eyes away the moment their eyes met.

David couldn't help but feel as if John was there to watch him.

"But really," said David as John threw the last of his drink into his mouth. "Is there something that I'm missing, or something that you're not telling me? Because I'd really like to know."

John choked on his Red Bull and coughed violently. The cashier in the convenience store looked rather amused.

"Look," said John, coughing up the drink that he accidentally breathed in. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"You know… What I said a few days ago." John looked very uncomfortable on the subject.

David sighed. Out of all the subjects that John could bring up, that was the one that he chose?

No, why was he bringing up that fight in the first place?

"It's alright," said David. "I've moved on."

That was what he had said that day too. David couldn't help but feel as if he was going through a horrible case of déjà vu.

"I'm sorry," John said again, and despite how angry David had felt that day, he couldn't help but feel rather tired at John's constant apologizing.

And he was trying to steer the conversation somewhere else. _Again_.

"It's _fine_, it's alright. Besides, it's none of my business what you do with Rose anymore," he insisted, and John's shoulder deflated slightly as the tension was lifted. David sighed when he realized that it was apparent tell that John had been worried that David would still be holding a grudge, and the relief shone brightly on his younger sibling's features.

"But," he continued, and he saw John's shoulders stiffen again. "You really shouldn't change the subject."

Now it was John's turn to sigh. David felt frustration rise within him again.

_What was it that they were keeping from him? _

"It's tabooed," said John at last. "We're not supposed to talk about it."

"But I guess it's alright to talk about it with your eyebrows?" said David skeptically.

John sighed again, and David knew that John was just as frustrated as he was. "We'll tell you later," said John. "I don't think we should tell you just yet."

"And you're allowed to know?" David felt anger bubbling within him. He wanted to know. It was _killing_ him, not knowing something that everyone else did. If anything, he wanted to be a part of what the rest of the family knew. While it sounded rather cliché, David felt that not knowing what all the other members of the family knew was keeping him from being with them.

Like a barrier.

An _unbreakable_ barrier.

"We all did at one point, David," said John as he reached out a hand to pat David's shoulder. David resisted the urge to pull away. "Even you."

"But I don't know what it is." His voice sounded very faint. Was that even his voice? David wasn't so sure anymore.

"You do," insisted John. "You do know. You just have to remember, and it'll be there."

"What'll be there? How can I remember something that I don't know yet?"

"Because," said John. "You were right in the middle of it all. And I know it's hard. You made yourself forget because it was too terrible for you."

"I don't understand, John," David replied, and for some reason, he felt very, very small. He felt desperate.

"You do, David. You understand the most out of all of us, and you have to find out on your own," said John, and as David looked into eyes that looked exactly like his, he realized that this wasn't a battle that someone else could fight for him. This wasn't something that the others could tell him. It was something that he had to find out on his own.

This was his battle.

And his battle alone.


	7. Toxic Coffee and Dads

**This is the longest hiatus that I've been on so far, and I am so sorry. I had no idea of how this chapter was going to flow and I haven't got the entire story written down, although I have a mind map of how this story will end. I'll try to update more often. I am so, so, sorry. **

**On the other hand, the coffee machines make the most horrible kind of coffee ever. **

* * *

**Chapter 7 – Toxic Coffee and Dads**

He vaguely registered a beeping sound within his dreams. It was small, but it was loud enough to signal that he was becoming conscious. Would it go away if he regained his conscious completely?

The constant beeping in his noise was making his head ache. By its volume, the source of the sound was probably very close to his ears. It reminded him of his alarm clock. In that moment, more than anything else in the world, he wanted to turn it off.

Matt opened his eyes.

And immediately shut them close. Some manipulative bastard must have opened the curtains and the bright sunlight was shining in his eyes. He groaned as he placed a hand over his eyes, before noticing several tubes and needles that entered his wrist.

His eyes numbly followed the lines before finally taking in the plastic medical bag full of liquid, hanging on a hook.

Even though his head was filled with a lazy haze, he was able to comprehend where he was.

Not in his room.

Matt groaned slightly. Alright, maybe his mind wasn't working as well as he thought it was. But even so, by the tiles on his ceiling and what he could see of the fuzzy outline of the room, it definitely wasn't his.

He could also see a dark shape next to his bed, which was currently slumped over in the chair where the person was sitting in. Matt's eyes blurred, and he wasn't sure who exactly he was looking at. By common knowledge, it was probably a member of his family but he couldn't tell if the person had black hair or brown, or if he was wearing a brown suit or a blue one.

He vaguely wondered if he was going colorblind.

Or maybe it wasn't a family member at all. Maybe it was Craig, his apartment buddy. He tried to remember if the ceiling in Craig's apartment was white. He didn't think so.

Why was he even in here in the first place? Why wasn't he in his room? He didn't know anymore. He couldn't remember. He questioned himself if he even wanted to remember. Matt didn't have an answer. Maybe not now. Maybe later, he'll want to remember, but definitely not now.

Not when he was so tired.

He was becoming drowsy again. All that he wanted right now was to go to sleep and think about the questions that he had later, when he might get his mind cleared up a little more. He tried to move a little, to get into a more comfortable position, or to curl up into a ball before going back to sleep, but a splitting pain that came from somewhere around his stomach stopped him from going further.

Sleep was pulling him into her embrace. Matt let out a small sigh before ceasing to struggle, and closed his eyes. He was unconscious again within seconds.

The dark shape that had been nodding off at the side of Matt Who's bed, jerked awake just a few minutes later. The father rubbed his eyes and ran his hand across his shaved head, feeling slightly irritated at the fact a certain blond haired archeologist was absent from the seat next to him, but then got over it. She could have gone to get some coffee. Even Christopher with all the days and nights he could spend without sleeping a wink had a hard time trying not to fall asleep from the anxiety and stress that Matt's accident had brought.

He remembered River Song running her hands in his son's hair, looking as if she was hoping for Matt to feel her caresses in his unconscious state. Christopher knew that the woman would take care of his son, no matter what happened. He wondered if the twinge in his chest was jealousy. Jealousy, because somebody else would be there for Matt when he, as the father, couldn't be. He felt that he wasn't doing enough as a father.

Then there was yesterday. He couldn't remember why he had said such a thing; it was terrible. He could never imagine those same words coming out from his mouth at that particular situation, but by the time he realized that, it was already too late. He remembered his Idris's face, how she gasped and how tears started to form at the corner of her eyes at his words and –

What a wonderful time it was, to be pessimistic. He internally smacked himself.

The man sighed, smoothing the leather jacket which he was so fond of, attempting to straighten the bottom which had folded over from him sitting on it for so long. He wondered if River would be gone for a long time, since he himself wanted a cup of coffee as well.

He stretched again and felt all his remaining energy suddenly dissipate into nothing. Chris rubbed the back of his head again, and felt the short hairs prick his skin like a porcupine. He smoothed them down, and they felt silky.

He looked down at Matt. His son looked like he was still unconscious. Maybe he was awake while Chris was asleep? Unlikely. The eldest Who reached out and gently took Matt's hand into his own. The skin was pale and white, unlike his own, which was slightly red. There were several scorch marks on his fingertips where Matt had clumsily burned himself while working with a welder.

Chris turned the hand over without a thinking. Matt's hand was cold, but that was to be expected. He rolled his son's hand in his, thinking that maybe he could bring the warmth back into his hands if he tried enough. Sure enough, the hand became warm again after a few moments.

He remembered the first time that he held this hand, more than twenty years ago. How small that hand looked then. How small, how pale, how weak it was.

But babies weren't weak. Chris thought about how he put his finger onto Matt's tiny, baby hand, and thought he could remember how strong the grasp was that had latched onto him. He had read somewhere that if you put a finger into each of a baby's hands and lift them from their arms, they would hang themselves from the fingers and would not let go. Chris often thought it was nonsense. But he remembered Matt's tiny hand, and David's tiny hand, John's tiny hand, and he knew that the text was true.

Now Matt has grown. They've all grown. All of his children, all tiny, small and frail at one point, were all grown up and were strong. And they didn't really need him anymore. The thought saddened him. In fact, he couldn't remember a single time when they actually came to him for help. Chris wondered again, if he had failed as a father.

The thought was depressing. He slumped in his seat and his hold on Matt's hand lessened slightly. But he didn't let go. He couldn't let go. Would Matt feel Chris holding onto his hand in his unconscious state?

It was in that way that River Song, with two cups of coffee in her hands, had found her lover and his father.

"You're awake," she announced, standing in the doorway. Christopher looked up, his eyes slightly damp.

"Hmm," he hummed in reply. River ignored how the man subtly brought a hand up to his eyes and wiped away what was there when he thought she was looking in the other direction. She pretended that she hadn't seen and handed Christopher a cup instead, who took it gratefully. She sat down in her previous seat next to him and sipped her coffee silently and made a face at its taste.

"It's terrible," she remarked. "I've always hated the coffee machine. They're so…" She trailed off, looking for the right word.

"Cheap?" Christopher offered. River smiled , glancing at him from the corner of her eyes.

"Well, there's cheap," she said. "I was looking for 'artificial'. Or perhaps, 'phony'."

"Phony," he muttered. He looked down in his cup. The plastic substance that was painted on the inner walls of the paper cup was toxic – he wondered if the white, oily substance that swirled around the top of his cup was the poison itself. Or maybe it was the powdered milk. Maybe he should take it to the lab and have it tested. But he was an astrologist. An astrophysicist. Both of each. Standing on the thin line that separated the two. He wasn't supposed to be in the lab, testing for chemical substances.

A more saner part of his brain asked if he should really be wondering what the oily substance was.

He stole a glance at River. She was staring at him, her gaze piercing. He tried to hold his glance, but failed and looked back down to his cup.

"You must be pretty tired," she said, reaching out to pat him on the back. Chris breathed in deeply. She laughed.

"Yeah, you must be," she chuckled, taking her hand away. Christopher straightened up, just remembering the fact that River had donated a tremendous amount of blood for Matt with her cousin, Amy. And she wasn't showing any sign of distress or trauma, or lack of energy.

He had to admit that what Matt had always proudly stated about his girlfriend was true; River Song was a strong woman.

There was a small commotion outside the door. There seemed to be an argument between two people, and by the sounds of it, both were women. River frowned at the noise.

"Oh, for God's sake, can't we just slap them sometimes?" she said, glaring coldly towards the door. Chris replied no.

"This is a hospital, and the patients here need rest," she grumbled in low tones, but Chris could hear her quite clearly. "Can't they take their arguing elsewhere?"

"Where's David and John?" he asked the archeologist, attempting to steer her attention elsewhere before she actually followed her previous statement of slapping the women. He tried to pretend that he just realized that they were absent from Matt's bedside. It seemed to have worked, because River softened her glare and directed it back at Matt. She quietly fluffed Matt's hair before answering.

"They went home, shortly after we were allowed in here. They decided that they wanted to catch a bit of sleep. It was the right thing to do, I guess, seeing as Matt's not allowed a large number of visitors at the moment, and we were hogging his bedside. They would have just stood out in the hallway until one of us decided to move."

Chris nodded absentmindedly. He looked towards the blond, who had stopped fluffing his son's hair and was now poking Matt's cheek repeatedly.

"Aren't you going to get any sleep, Professor River Song?" he asked, his Northern accent heavy.

River shook her head. "I'm going to stay here," she said. "although if you ask me, you need the sleep more than I do."

Christopher downed the remaining coffee in response to show her that he would stay. Which was all for naught, because he felt a yawn split his head open only a few seconds afterwards. River grinned viciously, as if she had made a point. Which, Chris had to remind himself, she had.

"Fine," he said, glaring at her. River didn't even flinch. "I'll call up Idris and have her or one of the boys come. Are you staying?" He directed the question towards River.

"If they want to come, I'll be somewhere else," she said, shrugging her shoulders. "Just as long as they call me when Matt wakes up." Chris nodded, acknowledging her.

"Alright," he responded, pulling out his phone and walking out the door. The two women outside had stopped arguing a moment ago, and there was only one person standing from across the door. Chris slowly lowered his hand holding the phone, and took in the woman's appearance instead. She was a middle aged woman with ginger hair that came down past her shoulders, but she didn't look particularly interesting. She just looked like a normal person. She wasn't someone who he knew, so she must have been an acquaintance of River Song or Matt.

"Uh," he started, wondering that maybe she was waiting for someone else other than the previously mentioned couple, but the woman straightened her back to stand taller and crossed her arms in a no-nonsense way before opening her mouth to start talking.

"I am Donna Noble," the woman said, her speech chock full of Chiswick accent and signs of stubbornness. "and I would like to see the man who saved my life."

Chris blinked in response.


End file.
